So long as great Government departments (over which, be it observed, from the very exigencies of administration, the mass of the people can never have any real control) supply our wants, so long shall we remain in our present condition, the difficulties of life unconquered, and ourselves unfitted to conquer them.

No amount of State education will make a really intelligent nation; no amount of poor-laws will place a nation above want; no amount of Factory Acts will make us better parents. These great wants which we are now vainly trying to deal with by Acts of Parliament, by prohibitions and penalties, are in truth the great occasions of progress, if only we surmount them by developing in ourselves more active desires, by putting forth greater efforts, by calling new moral forces into existence, and by perfecting our natural ability for acting together in voluntary associations.

To have our wants supplied from without by a huge State machinery, to be regulated and inspected by great armies of officials, who are themselves slaves of  the system which they administer, will in the long run teach us nothing, will profit us nothing.

–Auberon Herbert